Aneutronic fusion is the holy grail of fusion power research. A new method of operating Polywell was developed which maintains a nonMaxwellian plasma energy distribution. The method extracts downscattered electrons and replaces them with electrons of a unique higher energy. The confined electrons create a stable electrostatic potential well which accelerates and confines ions at the optimum fusion energy, shown in the graph below. Particleincell(PIC) simulations proceeded in two steps; 1) operational parameters were varied to maximize power balance(Q) in a small scale steadystate reactor; and 2) the small scale simulation results were scaled up to predict how big a reactor would need to be to generate net power. Q was simulated as the ratio of fusionpoweroutput to drivepowerinput. Fusionpower was computed from simulated ion density and ion velocity. Powerinput was simulated as the power required to balance nonfusing ion losses. The predicted breakeven reactor size was 13 meter diameter. Bremsstrahlung losses were also simulated and found manageable.

A new type of electric propulsion system is presented whereby an asymmetric hollow
cathode glow discharge is created within the thruster and ions are accelerated toward the exit nozzle. A novel characteristic of this thruster is the neutralization of the ions via charge-exchange reactions with the background gas, which is the dominant ion-neutral reaction at operating voltages of the order of ten- kV and currents of mA. The thruster is entirely self-contained with ions created, accelerated and neutralized within cathode. Langmuir probe measurements have shown the existence of a sharp potential 'ramp' within the cathode with a maximum potential drop of approximately 90% of the applied cathode voltage, resulting in highly energetic and collimated beams of neutral atomic hydrogen ejected from the cathode. Doppler-shift spectroscopy was used to measure the speed of the exiting neutral atoms which gave a specific impulse and thrust to be of the order of 10,000 seconds and 100 microNewtons respectively for hydrogen gas.